Road-surface resmoother



8 0 2 7 3 an.. l N O s u.. w D. E.

July 26, 1927.

ROAD SURFACE RESMOOTHER Filed Eeb. 23. 1924 2 SheetS-Sheetl QN u I l n July 26, 1927.

'F'. D. WILSON ROAD SURFACE RESMOOTHEE i lm/V eww,

I lustratin Patented-July 26, 1927.

UNITED STATES PATENT oEFlcE.

FRED WILSON, F HARVEY, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNOR T0 AUSTIN MANUFAGTUBIN CO.,

Ol' CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, A CORPORATION OF ILLINOIS.

Roan-SURFACE nnsmoo'rnan.

application med February as, 1924. serial no. 694,527.

This invention is a machine, s cifcally a roller mechanism, for removing t e irregular ruts and corrugationswhich appear in the use of conventional paved streets or Ahighways, and particularly to asphalt pavements which, as is well understood in the art, develop waves'or cross-ridges caused by heavy trailio-'this particularly in warm weather when the material is ina most pliable condition and tends to creep ahead and be unevenly compressed by the passing vehicle wheels.

The object of this invention is Nto rovide a machine equipped. with a plur ity of rollers following one after the other which under normal road surface conditions will apply to the road surface a part of the total load of the roller mechanism in proportion to the number` of rollers; but which will, when a particularly irregular or hard ridge l in the road surface is encountered, applyr a very much larger percentage of the total weight of the machine to that particular 0bstruction, thereby reducing it to.a level in conformity with other parts of the road suru face.

The further object of the invention is to provide such a machine with mehcanism enabling it to travel in curved lines as well as in strai ht lines. The further object is to to selective y provide at whichever may for'the moment be the forward end of the machine a roughened roller or other tool adapted to work into the rough ridges on the road sur-l face preparatory to their being engaged b 36 the smooth surface rollers which follow sai special roller.

The invention consists in mechanism for attaining the foregoing and other objects; which can be comparatively easily land 40 cheaply made; which is satisfactory in use and is not readily liable to get out of order. More particularly, the invention consists in numerous features and details of construction which will be hereafter more fully set 4l` forth in the specification and claims.

Figure 2 is a side view partially in secthis invention in its preferred' d form, -a justed for straight forward and back movement'in treating 'a road surface.

tionltaken on the irregular line 2 of Figure f Figure 3 isa changed position view of the parts of Figure 1 showing the machine arranged to travel in a curve.

Figure 4 is a transverse end view on lthe irregular line 4--4 of Figure 1.

Figure 5 is a similar view on the irregular line 5-5 of Figure 1. In the particular embodiment of the invention shown in the drawings, seven road surface engagin rollers are provided bearing the numera s 11 to 17, inclusive; but a greater or less number of; such rollers may be used without departing from the invention. Above lthese rollers is a rigid, in the particular case here illustrated, a rectangular frame 18, to which the yoke of the middle roller 14'is rigidly attached by any suitable means as, for instance, the rivets 22 passing into the bottoms of separated, de-

pending lugs 24 formed in the central, trans- Verse cross-member 26 (clearly shown in Fig.

4) of the main frame 18.

Above each oft e other rollers 11-13 and 415-'17 is a crossl ember 28 rigidly secured to the sides of fra-me 18 by any suitable means as, for instance, bolts 30. Each of these cross members 28 differs from cross- 'me'mber 26 in the provision of a dependin central bearing 32 journalling a vertica hereafter described. Removable bolts 44 are provided for insertion through a given cross-member 28, block 40 and into adjacent yoke 38, as shown iii- Figures 1 and 5 to tem-` porarily rigidly secure all of the rollers 1f 13 and 15-17 parallel to each other for actual road worklng in straight lines len hwiseof the machine. When it is desire to havethe machine work on a curve or turn a corner, the bolts 44 are removed,thereby allowing the device tol assume theV position shown in Figure v In order to automatically adjust allot` the rollers to the angular position shown 1n Figure 3, required or Working on a curve or traveling around corners, the yokes of rollers 11 and 12 are connected together by a connecting rod 46, lying at one side of the central axis of the machine; the yokes of rollers 12 and 13 are connected by a similarly disposed connecting rod 48; the yoltes of rollers 13 and 15 are connected together by a diagonally disposed connecting rod 50, which crosses the center line of the machine; yokes 38 of rollers 15 and 16 are connected by a link 52, lying on the opposite side of the center of the fmachine from links 46 and 48; and, finally, the yokes of rollers 16 and 17 are attached together by a connecting rod 54 in substantial alignment with and on the same side of the machine as connecting rod l52. For strength and efficiency of actlon, the connecting rods described are provided in duplicate; the second set being designated 46 to 54, respectively; but only one of these sets is actually required. Pivotally attached to the yoke 36 of roller 11 is a push-pull member 56 adapted to be engaged by any suitable mechanical or animal source of power capable of pushing or pulling, as the case may be, the entire machine over the road'. The roller 17 is equipped with a corresponding push-pull member 58. The result of the connecting rod and push-pull device construction, just described, is that when the bolts 44 are removed and a given push-pull part, as 58, is4

rotated from the position of Figure 1 to that of Figure 3, all of the rollers in the machine except the central one 14 are turned on their king pins .34 to the position shown )y in Figure 3, and that it is entirely obvlous that rocking the member 58 in the opposite direction will correspondingly oppositely `dispose the various rollers of the mach1ne the result of this construction bein that the machine can be, within reasonab e limits, positioned as desired to move either in a perfectly straight line lengthwise of the machine as it will when the parts are inthe position of Figure 1, or to move in the arc of a circle, as it will when the parts are in the position of Figure 3.

In the drawings, end rollers 11 and 17 are shown as provided with corrugated surfaces which in practice more readily work into the rough ridges on the road surface 60 traversed by the machine than do the smooth, symmetrical surfaces of the rollers 11-16, inclusive; as, obviously, when the corrugated rolleris provided, 'it is 4only wanted for use at the head of the machine in the direction in which the machine is going. The shafts 62 of these front and rear rollers are mounted upon conventional eccentrics 64, manipulated by suitable mechanism, such' as handle 66, so that the following or rear end corrugated roller can be ele vvated off from the ground by manipulation of the eccentric and thus thrown out of action where it cannot re-roughen the road surface 60 which has been smoothed by the rollers 12--16 which just preceded that particular corrugated roller along the road surface.

iVhen the machine thus constructed and manipulated is placed on a roughened road surface 6() and by pushing or pulling on the members 56 or 58 moved over the road surface, the weight of the entire machine, say 32,000 pounds, will, if the road surface 6() is fair-l)- smooth. be distributed substantially equally over the six rollers (one corrugated roller being raised) which engage the road surface; but. if an unusually high and resistant roughness in the road surface 60 is encountered, it will receive substantially half of the weight of the machine when the front roller 11 or 17, as the case may be, strikes it and bears upon it, thereby momentarily lifting the next four rollers oi from the ground and` if the road obstruction continues resistant long enough` until it is reached by the center rollerA 14, which may momentarilv receive the entire weight of the machine, all of the rollers, except roller 14, being momentarily suspended in the air by means of roller 14 bearing on the road obstruction and the co-operating rigid frame 18 which carries the other rollers from roller 14.

This described result is obtainable because of the fact that the complete frame. 18 is, by the use of the box-shaped cross-members 26 and 28, made sufficiently rigid so that it doesnot flex downward when the entire load is carried by roller 14 to thereby allow the remaining rollers to touch the road surface.

The rollers 11 and 17 may be made with smooth surfaces-like the remaining rollers should the constructor so desire, Without departing from this invention.

The upper end of each king pin 34 is provided with a conventional spring 66 which serves to hold the adjacent yoke 38 in 'good rotating position on the bottom of the adjacent member 32.

The rods 46-54 are so pro ortioned and their pivot pins 70 on the yo es 28 are so placed that when the rollers are in the position of Figure 3, imaginary line extensions of the axis of rotation of the various rollers intersect at a common center (below Fig. 3) remote from the machine about which the machine as a whole travels, and that in intermediate, angular positions of the rollers between those of Figures 1 and 3, the said axial lines continue to intersect each other at other common centers located between the point above described and a point lll said parallel axial lines in the position of Figure 1.,

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. In mechanism of the class described, a multiplicity of tandem horizontally disposed road rollers, a frame sustaining said rollers, sufficiently rigid with reference to each other' so that when a central roller passes over a road obstruction, the other rollers are sus# tained oi the road thereby throwing the weight of the entire machine on the one roller, means pivoting certain of the rollers on vertical axes and a series of dia onally disposed connecting rods between sald pivoted rollers so arranged that manually rocking one pivoted roller on its vertical axis simultaneously so rocks all the pivoted rollers that the machine can move in a curve.

2. In mechanism of the class described, a frame supporting a multiplicity of tandem horizontally disposed road rollers, means pivoting certain of the rollers on vertical axes, and a series of diagonally disposed connecting rods between said pivoted rollers so arranged that manually rocking one pivoted roller on its vertical aXis simultaneously so rocks all of said pivoted rollers that the machine can move in a curve.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto subscribed my name.

FRED D. WILSON. 

